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Alrighty then. Fifty bucks to American Atheists. Which I probably should have waited until I can better afford, but fuck it; it’s worth it. Since I’m not a contributor to CFI I, can’t exactly take my money and go home, but I can start giving to people who aren’t shitheads.

I can’t think of any politicians who get the *sheer volume and intensity* of “parody” accounts Ophelia and others like Rebecca get (especially combined with the general grossness of a lot of the content.) Maybe Romney or Obama, someone on that level. The Pope? If we count him as a public figure in that sphere. I won’t claim to have never been amused at satire of relatively minor non-elected officials but it was like an hour during whatever the twitter outrage du jour was, and then everyone moved on. Even if you agreed with every untruthful, ludicrous, irrational claims against FTB etc dying in a ditch over the appropriateness of these tactics reflects poorly on someone’s maturity. Also there’s a difference between satirising a person’s mere existence and satirising what they say, the latter requires some insight and wit (which people can recognise even if they agree with the one being satirised) and the former requires nowt but common or garden nastiness and it is in the former category all this stuff falls.

I can’t think of any politicians who get the *sheer volume and intensity* of “parody” accounts Ophelia and others like Rebecca get (especially combined with the general grossness of a lot of the content.) Maybe Romney or Obama, someone on that level.

Just to provide a benchmark for how many parody Twitter accounts are reasonable for a person, there are two parody accounts for God almighty:

What about the recent kerfuffle with our PM here in australia? A guy printed up a menu as part of a dinner for the opposing party that made pun jokes about Julia gillards body complete with a ‘big red box’ joke. Sure there were some who took the side of the sexist pigs who made it but all in all there was a pretty big sweeping condemnation that making derogatory body jokes was too far even for a politician. Not to mention that rarely happens to male politicians. So even in politics loaded and obviously gendered ‘satire’ like that doesn’t get a pass.

Its not about satire, its about who they can hurt and who they can silence. Ophelia might be considered a “celeb” in the movement since she is a speaker and prominent blogger. How does “Rich” explain this “parody” for example -> https://twitter.com/ELatheism with an L rather than I … Julia’s crime? Recently deciding as a result of Richard Carriers A+ talk at aacon13 that she would be vocally feminist and A+. So the obsessed stalker “ElevatorGate” blogs about her and then this appears. Strangely followed by EGs various socks and accounts straight away. I’ve mentioned this example before as well -> http://elevatorgate.wordpress.com/2012/11/20/skeptikat-katy-hall-being-a-silly-little-girl/

One tweet and he attempts to dox her, fortunately messed it up. Message is clear, speak up about feminism and you’ll get an obsessed cyberstalker “parodying” and “storyfying” and “blogging” about your every word. None of it is justified because who of those being “parodied” is a leader of a major organisation? Why are they nearly all women? “Adam Wee” and “Simon Blowz” being rare exceptions, although they hardly tweet, Julia’s “parody” is rather more active. Total coincidence they target women primarily…. Also nothing to do with the Slymepit and the various arses that read that place? Well EG is currently tieing Justin Vacula as most connected idiot in the anti-FTB/Skepchick/A+ cabal -> http://www.theblockbot.com/?page_id=35 -> So he gets rather a lot of support from them all.

Vacula and his slymy buddies may have had a point if they were “satirizing” the positions advanced by their targets rather then spending so much time pointing how ugly, stupid, manginas they are. Right now they’re equivalent not to John Stewart making fun of Obama being a hypocrite over warrantless wiretaps and more like the asshole who produced the pictures of the Obamas as witchdoctors.

JV thinks Ophelia is prominent enough that “satire” is justifiable. (For his peculiar definition of satire) He also thinks he’s more prominent that Ophelia or anyone else at FTB. So it’s totes OK for us to start making lots of parody accounts to pass around photoshops of JV with assorted farm animals?

Not that we would, of course. I’m pretty certain that he’s relying on us to behave far better than him and his buddies.